-Caveat Lector-
>From http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/17/opinion/17RICH.html
August 17, 2002
The Waco Road to Baghdad
By FRANK RICH
eorge W. Bush tossed the nation's press a softball and they hit it out of the park.
There was
not a single good review, not even from his minions at The Wall Street Journal
editorial
page, for the White House's feel-good-about-your-401(k) jamboree at Waco. It was a
"forum," the critics suggested, in the sense that the Politburo was a "legislature."
Only Mr.
Bush, who is on record as having loved "Cats," pronounced the event a "great show."
But it's Mr. Bush who was right. What his critics miss is that by this administration's
standards of governance, Waco was a triumph. It was expressly designed to be content-
free (rather like "Cats," in fact). The goal was never to produce policy but solely to
serve up
a video bite of Mr. Bush looking engaged by the woes of what his chief of staff, Andrew
Card, referred to on CNN as "so-called real Americans." If the White House wanted
anyone
to listen, it would not have staged eight separate panels simultaneously on a Tuesday
morning in the dog days of August, assuring that complete coverage would be available
only on C-Span.
For those few viewers who dipped in, the spectacle was not unamusing. On one panel, Mr.
Bush could be found in mutual fawning with his campaign contributor "Chuck" Schwab —
Charles to us — no doubt oblivious to the fact that Chuck had just placed a nose behind
Enron's Ken Lay and Global Crossing's Gary Winnick on Fortune's "Greedy Bunch" list of
those executives who cashed out the most stock before their companies' shares tanked by
75 percent or more. Yet even this touching tableau, on a day when Schwab was laying off
nearly 400 employees, did not stop CNN, MSNBC and Fox News from switching to such
alternative programming as a picturesque natural gas explosion in a suburban California
house.
What makes the morning-after outrage of the nation's commentariat seem a bit over the
top is that the preordained hollowness of the Waco show is not news. This is how this
administration always governs. Mr. Bush has two inviolate, one-size-fits-all policies
(if
obsessions can be called policies): the tax cut (for domestic affairs) and "regime
change" in
Iraq (foreign affairs). Everything else is a great show designed to provide the
illusion of
administration activity when it has no plan.
The show takes the form not only of the Orwellian slogans emblazoned on the backdrops
("Small Investors/Retirement Security" loomed above the president and Chuck in Waco)
but
also of bogus announcements of muscular action. At the forum's final curtain, the
president
declared that he would teach Congress a tough lesson about fiscal responsibility by
holding
back $5.1 billion it had appropriated for such low-priority items as equipment for
firefighters
and health monitoring at ground zero. But what about the $190 billion in wasteful farm
subsidies he has already thrown to the winds? Besides, he would have to cut spending by
$5 billion five days a week for more than a year to compensate for the red ink of his
$1.35
trillion tax cut.
Though the president's harshest critics think he's stupid, I've always maintained that
the
real problem is that he thinks we are stupid. He never doubts that his show will
distract us
from bad news. Waco was supposed to make us forget the latest round of economic
headlines: stagnant wages, slowed growth, new all-time records in personal bankruptcies
and consumer borrowing. All this is on top of a falloff in the Dow that The Economist
measures as identical in percentage to that of Herbert Hoover's first 18 months, which
included the crash of '29.
Well, the economy is only money. It's when the same governance technique is applied to
life- and-death matters like war and domestic security that the farce curdles. Here,
too,
there are new headlines the administration wants us to forget. At the F.B.I., a Los
Angeles
Times investigation revealed, the prehistoric computer system remains in disarray even
as
the agency's top executives are either pushed out or flee for private employment (as
the
counterterrorism chief abruptly did on Thursday). The Wall Street Journal discovered
that
when the federal government issued a terrorist warning to shopping centers four months
ago, the Mall of America learned about it only by watching CNN. Not only are our
airlines
collapsing but, according to Thursday's USA Today, so is the undercover air marshal
program that was supposed to be strengthened after Sept. 11. One marshal called it "a
laughingstock."
And what does the administration propose as a solution? Last week John Ashcroft went on
TV to announce what he calls the "first ever White House conference on missing and
exploited children." It takes an exploiter to know one. F.B.I. figures show a decline
in the
kidnapping of children — except on cable TV. But if you can't crack the anthrax case,
why
not create some distracting hysteria by glomming onto a local law enforcement issue
that is
the biggest showbiz phenomenon since shark attacks? The administration loves the bait-
and-switch. It hyped the cases of "the American Taliban," John Walker Lindh, and the
"dirty
bomber," Jose Padilla, to cover for its failure to snare the actual Taliban leader,
Mullah
Omar, and the actual bomber, Osama bin Laden, much as it has hyped the perp walks of
second-rung executives from WorldCom to make us forget about Halliburton, Harken and
Ken Lay.
Next stop: Iraq. Just as a tax cut is billed as the miracle antidote to every possible
economic
ill — "We've got the best tax policy in the world!" Mr. Bush said at Waco — so we're
asked
to believe that taking out Saddam Hussein will bring democracy to Iraq and the rest of
the
Arab world, miraculously repair the chaos wrought by our disengagement from the Middle
East and win the war on terrorism all at once. The silver bullet that gets Saddam, it
appears, will cure all international ills with the possible exception of the arrogance
of the
French.
While Saddam is an authentic genocidal monster, there are more plausible links between
Al
Qaeda and our dear friend Saudi Arabia than between Al Qaeda and Saddam; it could be
argued that toppling him would strengthen Al Qaeda. But what the administration is
mainly
hoping is that a march on Baghdad will make us forget about Al Qaeda, wherever it may
be
lying in wait. It's not good P.R. for our war on terrorism that Islamic terrorists
have been
linked to eight attacks abroad since Daniel Pearl's murder in January, including the
assassination of the Afghan vice president in Kabul and the slaughter of an American
diplomat, among others, at a church in Islamabad.
The White House keeps saying that no decision has been made about Iraq, but of course a
decision has been made. Richard Perle, an administration Iraq hawk, gave away the game
in yesterday's Times: "The failure to take on Saddam after what the president said"
would
lead to "a collapse of confidence." Translation: If Mr. Bush doesn't get rid of Saddam
after
all this saber rattling, he will look like the biggest wimp since — well, his father.
Democrats,
as timid in challenging Mr. Bush on Iraq as they were in letting his tax cut through
Congress, keep calling for a "debate." What world are they living in? Mr. Bush is no
sooner
going to abandon his pursuit of Saddam than his crusade to eliminate the estate tax.
These
are his only core beliefs.
The questions left to be debated now are who's going to pay for the war, who's going
to be
killed in it, who's going to police what could be a decade-long cleanup. (So far the
answer
to all three seems to be first and foremost: the go-it-alone Americans.) The loudest
voices
asking these questions are almost exclusively Republican: Brent Scowcroft, Chuck Hagel,
Henry Kissinger, even Dick Armey. "If you think you're going to drop the 82nd Airborne
on
Baghdad and finish the job," said Senator Hagel, a Vietnam war hero, two weeks ago, "I
think you've been watching too many John Wayne movies."
What's been most remarkable about the Iraq project so far is how an administration as
effectively secretive as this one could spring so many leaks of invasion scenarios to
the
press. It strains credulity to assert that this is all an ingenious conspiracy to fake
out
Saddam. The leaks fake us out instead, inuring us to the new war to come.
The only mystery is when D-Day will be. Given the administration's history, I'd guess
that it
will put on the big show as soon as its political self-preservation is at stake.
Certainly the
White House's priorities are clear enough. It has guarded the records of Dick Cheney's
energy task force and the S.E.C. investigation of Harken far more zealously than war
plans
that might endanger the lives of the so-called real Americans who will have to fight
Saddam.
Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company | Permissions | Privacy Policy
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A<>E<>R
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
Forwarded as information only; I don't believe everything I read or send
(but that doesn't stop me from considering it; obviously SOMEBODY thinks it's
important)
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without
charge or
profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this type of
information for
non-profit research and educational purposes only.
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
"Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth
shut."
--- Ernest Hemingway
<A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A>
DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER
==========
CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic
screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are
sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis-
directions and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with
major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought.
That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and
always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no
credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply.
Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.
========================================================================
Archives Available at:
http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html
<A HREF="http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html";>Archives of
[EMAIL PROTECTED]</A>
http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
<A HREF="http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/";>ctrl</A>
========================================================================
To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Om
